We’re swapping road tolls with e-levy – Finance Minister

He said the new 1.75 percent Electronic Transaction Levy will be borne by most Ghanaians as compared to the road tolls.

Mr. Adu-Boahen said this move will increase government revenue in order to fulfil its infrastructure obligations.

“A lot of thought was put into trying to find a solution where we could share the burden,” he said.

“We have to provide roads and roads are something everybody wants… roads are not only for people to move but also to evacuate produce,” the Minister of State explained further.

The use of e-tolls has been suggested as a more efficient way to collect tolls because of the traffic disruption manual toll booths cause.

But Mr. Adu-Boahen said e-toll both would not make financial sense.

“To set up that whole thing costs money. If I am going to do that to collect only GHS 1 from you, it would take me 50 years to recover my investment.”

“I don’t believe that any solution would have been viable without a dramatic increase in the amount we were charging,” he added.

Presenting the 2022 budget statement and economic policy to Ghanaians, the Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta said the proposal was to enhance productivity and reduce environmental pollution which is also meant to reduce heavy traffic.